The

Nord Aviation Nord-Aviation ( en, Northern Aviation) was a state-owned French aircraft manufacturer. The bulk of its facilities were based on the site of Bourges airport, in the département of Cher, in central France. On 1 October 1954, Nord Aviation was c ...

SS.10 was a

MCLOS Manual command to line of sight (MCLOS) is a method for guiding guided missiles. With an MCLOS missile, the operator must track the missile and the target simultaneously and guide the missile to the target. Typically the missile is steered with a ...

wire-guided A wire-guided missile is a missile that is guided by signals sent to it via thin wires connected between the missile and its guidance mechanism, which is located somewhere near the launch site. As the missile flies, the wires are reeled out behi ...

anti-tank missile An anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), anti-tank missile, anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) or anti-armor guided weapon is a Missile guidance, guided missile primarily designed to hit and destroy Armoured fighting vehicle, heavily armored military v ...

Jean Bastien-Thiry Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry (; 19 October 1927 – 11 March 1963) was a French Air Force lieutenant-colonel and military air-weaponry engineer. He was the creator of the Nord SS.10/ SS.11 missiles. He attempted to assassinate French President ...

. In American service, the missile was called the MGM-21A. The missile entered service in 1955 with the French Army. It was used briefly by the US Army in the early 1960s. The missile ceased production in January 1962 after approximately 30,000 missiles had been built.

Development

Development began in France in 1948, when the Arsenal de l'Aéronautique in Châtillon sous Bagneux began looking at the possibility of developing the German X-7 missile further. The missile was designed to be cheap: In 1955, the missile cost 340 Francs and the control box 1,750 Francs. The first rounds were test fired in 1952. Development was completed in 1955 and the missile entered service with the French Army under the designation SS.10 ("Sol-Sol" French for "Surface to Surface"). The US army procured 500 missiles and three sets of launching equipment to evaluate a prototype version of the missile between early 1952 and October 1953, but concluded that the missile was not currently ready for use, but that the continued development should be monitored. After development of the missile was completed, the US successfully re-evaluated the missile in mid-1958, and the later SS.11 (also by designer Bastien-Thiry) and Entac missiles were procured for Army use.

History

In late 1955, Israel ordered 36 SS.10 launchers. They were received a year later, too late for the

IDF IDF or idf may refer to: Defence forces * Irish Defence Forces * Israel Defense Forces *Iceland Defense Force, of the US Armed Forces, 1951-2006 * Indian Defence Force, a part-time force, 1917 Organizations * Israeli Diving Federation * Interac ...

to use them in the 1956

Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...

. Subsequently, a self-propelled variant was developed, with four launchers carried by Dodge truck. In the early 1960s, SS.10 missiles were retired from the IDF service, replaced by SS.11. The US Army was interested in the missile from an early stage, but pursued development of their own missile - the

SSM-A-23 Dart The XSSM-A-23 Dart was an anti-tank guided missile developed for the United States Army in the 1950s. After protracted development, the missile, similar in design to the French SS.10, was cancelled in favor of purchasing the SS.11 missile. Design ...

missile. However, after the SSM-A-23 was cancelled in 1958, they began to consider procuring the SS.10 and SS.11 missiles. In February 1959, they decided to buy the SS.10 as a stopgap. The missile was delivered in January 1960 and was phased out in 1963 in favour of the

MGM-32 Entac ENTAC ("Engin Téléguidé Anti-Char") or MGM-32A was a French MCLOS wire-guided Anti-tank missile. Developed in the early 1950s, the weapon entered service with the French army in 1957. Production ended in 1974 after approximately 140,000 had ...

. The missile received the designation MGM-21A.

Description

In flight, the missile is steered by an unusual arrangement of electrically powered vibrating spoilers, the power for these spoilers is transmitted to the missile along the guidance wires from the operator's station. Since the missile spins in flight, a

gyroscope A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rota ...

is needed to determine which spoilers are currently up/down or left/right. Guiding the missile to the target is very demanding and requires a high level of operator skill and concentration - this is typical with

guided missiles.

General characteristics

* Length: 860 mm * Wingspan: 750 mm * Diameter: 165 mm * Launch weight: 15 kg * Speed: 80 m/s * Range: 500 to 1600 m * Guidance:

* Warhead: 5 kg Hollow-charge 400 mm versus RHA

Models

Prototypes

* Nord-5201 - Two winged prototype. * Nord-5202 - Four winged prototype. * Nord-5203 - Final production version.

Production versions

* SS.10 / MGM-21A

Operators

Former operators

* * * *

References

Nord SS.10/MGM-21
at Designation-Systems.Net

Notes

{{US missiles Anti-tank guided missiles of the Cold War Anti-tank guided missiles of France Military equipment introduced in the 1950s